Knowledge Transfer Partnerships

A Knowledge Transfer Partnership links your business to a world-class academic partner in the UK to drive innovation through collaboration.

For over 40 years Knowledge Transfer Partnerships have been helping businesses innovate for growth by accessing the UK’s world-leading knowledge base.

If you have an idea for your business but do not have all the in-house expertise needed to develop it, a Knowledge Transfer Partnership may be the answer. It creates a dynamic three-way collaboration – between a business or not for profit organisation, a UK university or research organisation, and a suitably qualified graduate – to help realise a strategic innovation project, bring about transformative change and embed new capability.

A Unique Three Way Collaboration

The unique collaboration formed by a Knowledge Transfer Partnership is designed to be mutually beneficial to all three partners:

A business or not for profit organisation: driving innovation, increasing productivity and improving business performance

A research organisation or university: creating business-relevant teaching, research and publishing opportunities

A suitably qualified graduate (known as the Associate): providing a rewarding employment opportunity and the chance to apply academic knowledge to real world business challenges

If you think a Knowledge Transfer Partnership might be appropriate for your organisation, talk to one of our expert Knowledge Transfer Advisers who are there to advise you at every stage.

They are on hand throughout and will work with you to help scope out the idea, find an academic partner, cost the project and help with your grant application, right through to working with you to shape and manage your project and deliver it on time.

Once you have had your grant application approved (nearly 90% of applications are successful), the university or research organisation will recruit a suitably qualified graduate (known as the Associate), usually with a Master’s or PhD, to work on the project, based at your company.

The Associate will be the conduit for change, transferring and implementing the knowledge generated and providing feedback from you to the academic partner, who will devote 0.5 days per week to your project.

Your Knowledge Transfer Adviser will visit every 3 – 4 months to provide on-going support to you, and coaching and mentoring support to the Associate. S/he can access colleagues elsewhere in the network to help your business fully exploit the project.

The length of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships varies from 12 – 36 months, depending on the nature of the project and the requirements of your business.

Part of the cost of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership is funded by a grant from the innovation agency Innovate UK, and other government co-funders, that you apply for in a competitive call for submissions. Project costs are variable, but can typically be of the order of £75,000 – £90,000 per project year. For Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises the grant rate is 67% of the project cost and for large companies 50%. The remainder of the project cost is met by a cash payment by your company.